Re: [xtm-wg] Promotion of Conceptual Model

[Murray Altheim <murray.altheim@eng.sun.com>]

Daniel,

I think it's silly for us to be spending time debating whether or not
our use of UML vs. DTD syntax are more formal. We could debate this and
it might be fun. But the DTD already *is* in an annex, and there is a 
section (currently titled "XTM Syntax Documentation") that describes what
the syntax means for XTM. 

What I'm proposing is that the UML diagrams likewise appear in an annex 
(since we should not *expect* people to understand them as a requirement 
of understanding the specification any more than we should expect them to 
understand XML syntax), and use the forward parts of the spec (currently 
titled "Terminology", "Basic Concepts", "Advanced Topic Map Features", 
and "XTM Processing Model", this latter still a question) to document in
prose what we conceptually mean by topic maps and how they are constructed
and processed. There is a symmetry here that I think is fair, and would
also be a logical construction that is intuitive for our audience.

As I said earlier, I don't know what *else* would be in these portions of
the specification. If we can't express what I've suggested in those sections,
we should give up and go home. That's what this spec must do. It doesn't just
dump a bunch of UML diagrams and a DTD in people's faces (not that you are
suggesting that). There is a difference (that I'm guessing you and I 
disagree about) regarding our flavour of UML (as described in Eliot's 
PDF document) and the "normativeness" of XML syntax, but as I said above
I don't see the value in us spending time debating that.

As you've said, we have people assigned to write this stuff up. I'm very
much looking forward to the first submissions, so that they might be 
ripped to appropriate shreds by Sam and redigested by me into the online
document. We've set up a churn-mill and we need some grist, rather than
a lot of further discussions of the grist. We have very little time, and
with no grist our mill will be rather useless. To continue with this goofy
metaphor, we can't bake bread, muffins or bagels until we have the flour.

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim, SGML/XML Grease Monkey     <mailto:altheim&#64;eng.sun.com>
XML Technology Center
Sun Microsystems, 1601 Willow Rd., MS UMPK17-102, Menlo Park, CA 94025

      In the evening
      The rice leaves in the garden
      Rustle in the autumn wind
      That blows through my reed hut.  -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu

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